There are crazy people in this world.

I went to sleep with this news.  Rite Aid robbery


I woke up to this news.  James Island Shooting

Dinner Anyone?

Salad is a staple around the Sims household. They are so fast, healthy, and delish! One of my favorites is a variation of the recipe below. I like to use baby spinach for the lettuce, feta instead of gorgonzola, and add in some dried cranberries. Yum! I also do an asian version with mandarin orange segments, dried cranberries, chow mein noodles, and chicken. 

Every time they turn out a little different, but here it is tonight!

My Salad

Toasted Pecans

The pecans are so easy to make! All you do is melt butter or margarine in a sauce pan, add some brown sugar, and then add the pecans. Sometimes I put them in the oven on broil for a few minutes so that they become a little extra crunchy.

Here is Cole's salad. We both love the crunchy topping that you see. I always keep some around to spice up a salad with. You can store this and the pecans for a while in mason jars in the frig. If you have ever eaten a salad at my house I am sure you have had it!

Cole's Salad

Here is the recipe. Its once of our family recipes. (I never use the whole stick of butter!)

Cole and I LOVE homemade dressings. We keep a few around, and this is another one of our favorites. It is best on a bed of fresh spinach or dark greens with fresh picked and cut strawberries and pine nuts. Instead of using the blender, I usually put it in a mason jar, seal tightly, and shake...much less messy!

Tomorrow is Obesity Day for Cole's class at MUSC. In honor of that, he and some friends are going to eat at Ryan's Steakhouse buffet for dinner tomorrow night! Maybe Cole's had too many salads :) At least I won't have to cook :)

Weart's Wisdom

This past week was super busy! Every night I had something going on. (I say that like it's unusual, but really every week is full of school and activities.) Here is a "small dose"... 

Tuesday night I was inducted into the Rho Chi Pharmaceutical Honor Society. Our speaker was one of my favorite professors, Dr. Wayne Weart. He is an accomplished and nationally renowned name in the pharmacy bubble, having hundreds of publications and being THE expert on drug interactions and cardiac pharmacology. Most importantly, he is a man of God. MUSC is fortunate to have him!  He gave a very motivating speech, and my favorite advice he gave came from a quote by James Michener. It states, "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both." What a great quote! Dr. Weart lives out this out. His hobby is pharmacy, and he is a model for me to always look at my career as my hobby. I think that being passionate about your career is vital to succeeding. So as this challenged me, I challenge you to find something you are passionate about and pursue it! I hope you can each find joy through a career or job like I have in pharmacy. And if you are in a career or job and unhappy, I challenge you to look for things to be thankful for! 

I hope pharmacy will continue to become and stay my play, leisure, and recreation.

Wednesday night was another big event, one that I had been looking forward to all year - dinner at President Greenberg's House. This is one of the perks of the Presidential Scholars Program at MUSC. Dr. and Mrs. Greenberg live in a beautiful home on Sullivan's Island. It was a wonderful evening to be wined and dined on their big front porch and enjoy the new friends I have made through the program this year!

Dinner menu

Herb Garden

One of my favorite parts about spring it that I get to plant my herbs! As most of you know, I love to cook, and I think there is nothing better than being able to go out and clip my own ingredients. Each herb has its own flavor and pairs well in different foods. Now I make do in potted plants on our porch, but someday I hope to have a small garden with of course, lots of herbs! Last year was my first year experimenting with them, and I learned a lot! First, I planted them too late. I waited until they went on sale in the summer...bad idea. They did fine for about a month but then slowly withered with the scorching hot weather. So, this year, as soon as March came upon us and I was sure there wouldn't be many more cold nights (most herbs prefer between 50 and 90 degrees), I headed out to Home Depot! You may wonder why Home Depot, and that is because yes, Cole and I still have wedding gift cards to a few places, Lowe's and Home Depot being two of them. I believe these cards were given intentionally for Cole's "honey do's" as one of our showers was themed, but I sneak in some flowers with them every once in a while :) Secondly I learned that they each need their own separate pot and third how important the holes in the bottom of the pots are to drain them. One of my herbs from last summer is still surviving. I believe it is supposed to be long gone, but somehow it is going strong. It's the parsley on the far left in the picture below and it is HUGE. I must have done something right :) 

Parsley, oregano, thyme, basil, cilantro, and spinach leaves

Have you ever seen parsley this big?

Soon I hope to share a few of my favorite recipes using the herbs. Be on the look out! And, if you have any that are to die for, I would love to have them!

Thinking about "Think"

I am reading John Piper's latest book titled "Think". The premise of the book is that in order to glorify God fully, we must engage BOTH our MIND in knowing Him AND our HEART in loving Him. Not either-or but both-and. Of course, the thought of glorifying God is usually with the heart, but this emotion is empty without knowing about truth and the character of God. Our joy must be awakened and sustained by our knowledge of God and his character. This is what the mind is for.

I have been made aware of how these go together! It is easy to fall into either trap. The first one is for intellectuals who spend all their spiritual energy into knowing God's Word - all the theology and details, memorizing verses, knowing the stories, names, and history by heart. They neglect falling on their knees to worship and pray to God and making their knowledge personal. The second trap is for the emotional basket cases who spend all their spiritual energy in crying out to God and worshiping Him through their feelings. They miss out on knowing God. Both-and not either-or.

John Piper says "Our thinking should be wholly engaged to do all it can to awaken and express the heartfelt fullness of treasuring God above all things. We cannot love God without knowing Him."

I am learning (and probably always will be) that faith has nothing to do with me. It is ALL about Him.  Join me in asking yourself, "Do I see God as supremely valuable? OR do I just receive Him as a sin-forgiver (because I love being guilt-free) and as a rescuer from hell (because I love being pain-free) and as a healer (because I love being disease-free) and as a protector (because I love being safe) and as a prosperity-giver (because I love being wealthy) and as a creator (because I want a personal universe)? This is challenging, because if I really claim to believe in Him, my faith will not be about what God can do for me, but about what I can do for him. That is, I should like Paul in Philippians 3:8 by "considering everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord." I can only do this by KNOWING Him and I can only know Him by using my MIND to THINK and read and study and memorize His Word. Lets receive Him instead as "more glorious, more beautiful, more wonderful, and more satisfying than anything else in all the world."

Am I living this way? Am I pursuing God with all of my MIND and all of my HEART? Which one needs more work? Join me in committing to KNOW HIM MORE so that we can better love Him, worship Him, and ultimately glorify Him. 

This book can be found online at Desiring God. 

Staycation

Cole and I went on "staycation" today - a vacation in our hometown - to Charles Towne Landing. Being that this is Cole's spring break, it was a beautiful Sunday, and we had a Groupon to go for free, it was a perfect day for a date! 

I have visited Charles Towne Landing a few times in the past for weddings, one for my cousins and one more recently for my dear friend Tricia that got married (She and and all of us, her bridesmaids, are in the current edition of "Charleston Weddings" magazine in the Gown Boutique ad, where Tricia and I both got our wedding dresses!) I knew the park was pretty, but today I realized how much more there was to see! We enjoyed the mini zoo (with bison, elk, turkey, deer, and pumas), strolling through the park and occasionally stopping to sit on a bench and enjoy this beautiful place we live, the gardens, and all the history. The flowers were blooming and I loved seeing new life popping up every where! Here are some pictures from our outing today. 

We love self-timer on the camera and use it all the time!

Spring is here!

I guess we do take a lot of "honeymoon shots"!

My First Blog!

This is my official entry into the blogging world! I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog for a few weeks months now, and I am finally committed!! The beckoning to blog stemmed from the fact that I love to journal, and a blog is just an online journal right?! But, my hesitations also stemmed from my enjoyment of writing down my thoughts and so by no means did I want blogging to become a substitute for that. So, I will continue to journal as normal but also use this blog to share "small doses" of my life!

I love the title of my blog and feel that it is most appropriate since I am a pharmacy student. By "small doses" I mean that this blog will be a glimpse into my life..."small doses" of the things I do and love and am learning. I am sure I will be sharing recipes that I try, interesting pharmacy news, pictures, marriage stories, and how I am experiencing God.

So, what is the purpose of my blog? and who will read it? are questions I have asked myself. And honestly I don't know the answer to either question. I guess we will find this out together.

I am still learning the blog lingo and technology, so bear with me!

Many of you have inspired me, and I have loved keeping up with friends and family through your blogs.

Join me on this journey!